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Origin of Tekki name change

I have been doing some research into the history of Naihanchi and need some help. In Karate-do Kyohan Neptune publication, Funakoshi changes the name from Naihanchi to Kiba Dachi. However in the Kodansha publication of Karate-do Kyohan, Naihanchi is said to have changed to Tekki. Now, both translations cannot be correct?

The Kanji for Kiba Dachi is - ???? and for Tekki is ??. So, ignoring the dachi part, Kiba and Tekki are made of two characters. Each include the character which loosely translates to "horse-riding/horseman" ?. However Kiba also includes the kanji of ? which translates as "horse", where as Tekki includes ?,which translates as "Iron".

From my basic Japanese language knowledge, I am quite sure that it not one of the cases where Kiba and Tekki could both come from the same set of of Kanji and over time the Kanji has changed (much like Karate originally meaning Chinese Hand and then changed to Empty Hand).

So when did Naihanchi changed to Tekki? We know Funakoshi changed it to Kiba Dachi in writing in 1935, but when did it change from Kiba to Tekki? and was it Funakoshi for sure who made the change?

The Kanji is not showing up, when I look at the post but I hope it still makes sense. :)

Here is the Kanji that is being discussed (screen shot from Wikipedia):

One thing to be mindful of here is that we don’t have the original kanji for “Naihanchi” as all older references to it are written in katakana. Katakana gives the sound; but not the meaning. This is a bit like the characters of the modern alphabet. I can write a word down here such as “autotonsorialist” (#) and while everyone reading now knows how that word sounds, they have absolutely no idea what it means from the letters alone.

Much of the Kanji used today is people using characters that could in theory make the right sounds. That tells us nothing about the original meaning though and it’s highly unlikely that it is anything close. The classic example of this is the kanji Funakoshi uses for “Bassai”. From that kanji people say the kata’s name means “to storm a fortress”. The problem is the characters Funakoshi uses have no historical basis. He simply used them because they made the right sound i.e. close to the original name of Passai.

In his writing Funakoshi states that part of the reason he gave the kata new Japanese names was because the meanings of the names were lost to history. While we do have the Kanji for some, most we don’t. And that includes Naihanchi. We have no idea what it means and hence all attempts to ascribe Kanji and from there a meaning are always going to be fundamentally flawed.

In his first book (1922), Funakoshi uses katakana to sound out “Naihanchi” so there was no attempt to ascribe a meaning then.

As you can see, it is the characters for “Kiba-Dachi-Shodan” that are used. So it would seem that was the name being used at that time: therefore, that would be the actuate translation. I would suggest that the Kodansha version, which has after all updated all the pictures to reflect “modern shotokan”, has also updated the name too; as opposed to trying to be a faithful translation of the original text.

As for when the preferred characters switched to “Tekki” I don’t know? It was obviously after 1935.

Does anyone know what is the first publication in which the name for the kata is written as “Tekki”?

Interesting questions!

All the best,

Iain

(#) – You just Googled that word didn’t you? If not, I’d just like to let you know that I’m an autotonsorialist … because it’s really simple for me to be one. You probably won’t find it as easy as me; so your probably not one. Curiosity getting the better of you? :-)

(#) – You just Googled that word didn’t you? If not, I’d just like to let you know that I’m an autotonsorialist … because it’s really simple for me to be one. You probably won’t find it as easy as me; so your probably not one. Curiosity getting the better of you? :-)

I don't think you really are, Iain. I think you just suck it back in and it blows out your face.

Funakoshi changed the name of the Naihanchi into Kiba Dachi and later into Tekki. The first version of Karate Do Kyohan from 1935 marked the first time Kiba Dachi no Kata was used. If I remember right in his 1943 Karate Do Nyumon Funakoshi used Tekki for the first time. So I guess in between 1935 and 1943 the Naihanchi was called Kiba Dachi. The Oshima translation (Kodansha) is based on the second edition of Karate Do Kyohan that was published after Funakoshis demise in 1958, hence they translate Tekki. Tekki means something along the line of "The Iron Equestrian/Horseman/Cavalier(whatever)" and Kiba Dachi means something along the lines of "The Stance of an Equestrian/Horseman/Cavalier(whatever)". Both use the Kanji that can be read as "Ki" Take a look here: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%A8%8E

If I remember right in his 1943 Karate Do Nyumon Funakoshi used Tekki for the first time.

Good to know! :-)

ky0han wrote:

So I guess in between 1935 and 1943 the Naihanchi was called Kiba Dachi.

Theoretically, Funakoshi could have changed the name to Tekki the day after Karate-Do Kyohan was published in 1935; and from the published record we would not know. Karate Do Nyumon’s publication in 1943 tells us it had changed by then. In the absence of Funakoshi or one of his students writing about the name change in the interim (or in later reflections), all we know is that Kiba-Dachi became Tekki some time between 1935 and 1943.

So from Funakoshi’s books we can say:

In 1922 Funakoshi was still calling the kata “Naihanchi”

At some point between 1922 and 1935 he changed the name to “Kiba-Dachi”

At some point between 1935 and 1943 he changed the name to “Tekki”

That’s good enough for me to be honest, but if anyone is aware of a little of information that may help narrow it down then please share.

in Genwa Nakasones Karate no Kenkyu from 1934 there is an article describing the 10th aniversary of the Keio Karate Club which was founded in 1924. There is a list of Kata the different club members demonstrated during that occasion. Funakoshi was invited and he wrote a congratulations letter for the club.

All three Naihanchi-Gata were performed among 29 others. The List states them as Naifanchi.

So somewhere between 1934 and 1935 the first name change must have happened. And you are absolutely right that Funakoshi could have changed the name into Tekki right after Karate Do Kyohan was published. I am not aware of a document were those three Kata were called Tekki prior to 1943. May be others can.

I wrote a comprehensive article on the names of the Shotokan kata. You can find the chapter on Tekki here. Unfortunately, it's only available in Spanish. According to my research, the first time the name "Tekki" appeared on record was in the 1941 edition of Karate-do Kyohan.

The work of the German researcher Henning Wittwer would most definitely be worth checking too. Unfortunately it's not available in English.

in Genwa Nakasones Karate no Kenkyu from 1934 there is an article describing the 10th aniversary of the Keio Karate Club which was founded in 1924. There is a list of Kata the different club members demonstrated during that occasion. Funakoshi was invited and he wrote a congratulations letter for the club.

All three Naihanchi-Gata were performed among 29 others. The List states them as Naifanchi.

Writing things down does force you to codify and solidity things, so it would seem logical to me that it was while preparing to write Karate-Do Kyohan that Funakoshi made his first name change definitive. This would seem to support that idea.

ky0han wrote:

I am not aware of a document were those three Kata were called Tekki prior to 1943. May be others can.

Victor Lopez Bondia wrote:

According to my research, the first time the name "Tekki" appeared on record was in the 1941 edition of Karate-do Kyohan.

Again, it may well have been the impeding production of one of those books that made the second name change definitive? It is, after all, “in black and white” after that.

So it could be the 1941 edition of Karate-do Kyohan, or the 1943 Karate-Do Kyumon, that instigated that. I don’t have the original Japanese language versions to check (anyone?). Early 1940s as a date is good enough for me though.

In the absence of contradictory evidence, and although we can’t be sure, it seems to be a reasonable assumption that it was the books that helped instigate the name changes as well as recording those name changes?

So we’ve now tightened things up to:

Around 1934 / 1935 Funakoshi changed the name from “Naihanchi” to “Kiba-Dachi”

In the early 1940s he changed the name from “Kiba-Dachi” to “Tekki”

I think that is a pretty good answer for Leigh's orginal question. Nice job everyone! :-)

This is so bringing out the “karate nerd” in me! As a good friend and training partner always likes to point out when I delight in historical detail, “Very interesting stuff Iain, but it does not help us punch any harder” :-) Good to keep grounded, but I’m really enjoying this one. I’ve never really thought about the timings of the name changes in detail before.

One thing to be mindful of here is that we don’t have the original kanji for “Naihanchi” as all older references to it are written in katakana. Katakana gives the sound; but not the meaning. This is a bit like the characters of the modern alphabet. I can write a word down here such as “autotonsorialist” (#) and while everyone reading now knows how that word sounds, they have absolutely no idea what it means from the letters alone.

Much of the Kanji used today is people using characters that could in theory make the right sounds. That tells us nothing about the original meaning though and it’s highly unlikely that it is anything close. The classic example of this is the kanji Funakoshi uses for “Bassai”. From that kanji people say the kata’s name means “to storm a fortress”. The problem is the characters Funakoshi uses have no historical basis. He simply used them because they made the right sound i.e. close to the original name of Passai.

In his writing Funakoshi states that part of the reason he gave the kata new Japanese names was because the meanings of the names were lost to history. While we do have the Kanji for some, most we don’t. And that includes Naihanchi. We have no idea what it means and hence all attempts to ascribe Kanji and from there a meaning are always going to be fundamentally flawed.

Hi Iain,

Thank you for this, I am no linguist but I am not following how my effort can be fundamentally flawed when I found what I did? Or did I just get very lucky etc?

It seems bang on the money to me and was undertaken with absolutly no idea what would be found and indeed then cross referenced with various tools/resources on the web.

It's far from a proffesional effort of course. I'm also told when the characters are combined they form a different meaning etc, but thats betond my skill.

you showed a translation of Nagamines choice of Kanji for Naihanchi. Others used other Kanji with other translations. The discussion evolved around Funakoshis name changes due to his troubles with the old Kata name Naihanchi, because nobody knew the Kanji for them and they had to use Katagana for writing it down.

Funakoshi used Kiba Dachi and later on Tekki were he choose the name with the according Kanji, so they are known and they were discussed.

Thank you for this, I am no linguist but I am not following how my effort can be fundamentally flawed when I found what I did? Or did I just get very lucky etc?

It seems bang on the money to me and was undertaken with absolutly no idea what would be found and indeed then cross referenced with various tools/resources on the web.

It does fit well, but I would say it is flawed because the kanji characters you used are not original. We don’t know what the original ones were as the older writings are all in katakana.

The kanji you used were probably picked because they gave the right sounds and inferred a cool meaning, but there are many others characters that can be picked that will give the same sounds but other meanings. I’ve heard people definitively say that the name of the kata means “sideways fighting”, “surreptitious steps”, “internally divided conflict”, etc, etc. All sound OK and seem to fit, but the bottom line is we don’t have the original kanji.

It also worth considering that much of the kanji that has been attributed to kata names makes the right sounds in Japanese; whereas the kata names originate elsewhere (China, Okinawa). We are therefore basing meanings on common sounds across uncommon languages.

It’s therefore not unlike me saying that “Chinto” means “the bottom part of your face” and “the digits on the end of your feet” (i.e because it sounds like “chin” and “toe” in English) and concluding that must be right because of the leaping kick in the kata that would connect the toes with the chin.

The above example is obviously wrong as I’m ascribing English meanings to non-English words that just happen to share a common sound. When people ascribe Japanese kanji to the kata, they are essentially doing the same thing i.e. ascribing Japanese meanings to non-Japanese words that just happen to share a common sound.

Whatever character / word originally gave birth to the “Nai” part could have come from any one of the Chinese languages or the many Okinawa dialects. We don’t know.

We can pick some kanji that happen to make the right sounds and give a cool meaning, but we have to accept that is a modern “rebranding” and has nothing to do with the original name. So ascribing kanji is fine in itself, but it is as flawed as my “chin-toe” analogy in terms of finding out what the original meaning was.

The meaning of these names is lost to us. Some accept that and simply write out the name in katakana (sound only). Others ascribe Japanese characters which approximate the right sounds (as in this example). And some rename the kata entirely i.e. Funakoshi. Whatever way we go, there is no way we can ever know what “Naihanchi” originally meant.

So to confirm we are saying that Shoshin Nagamine would have used modern Kanji characters as opposed to the earlier katakana which are lost?

That’s exactly it. All that was handed down to us was the sound of the name (as recorded with katakana).

shoshinkanuk wrote:

Either way I will take Nagamine's writings over Funakoshi in such areas.

Funakoshi seems to have approached this very pragmatically in giving the kata entirely new names. As he says in his writings, the original meanings are lost. So if it is felt that Japanese kanji are needed – and I can see what the Japanese way want that – new names with new Kanji is perhaps preferable to old names and superimposed kanji. Personal choice of course, but Funakoshi’s approach has a logic and simplicity about it. For me, I’m happy with the older names and not knowing for certain what they meant. To quote Shakespeare, “A rose by any other namewould smell as sweet” :-)

In his 1922 book Funakoshi used Katagana. In the interview that Funakoshi did with his teacher Asato Anko that was published in 1914 in the Ryukyu Shinpo Katagana was used for the Kata names Asato mentioned. And so on.

I believe it is correct. I didnt say it wasnt in use, I said it wasnt widely used. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_kana_usage It had several reforms and the most current reform was in 1946, this is when it started being adopted all over Japan.

Many people didn't bother learning katakana until after that.

I'm starting to think Holger will say the opposite of anything I post. Not to worry though, I'll still send you a Christmas card.

I still am not entirely convinced that this was the case. Lets say it was. Maybe Katagana was used but the majority of people were not able to read them properly. All Karate adepts were members of the higher classes of the ryukyuan court. They were certainly able to read and write properly due to their high standard education. When they tried to spread Karate to all over Japan they started at the universities not without a reason. People there were educated. But they also were trying to reach the other members of society too that were not highly educated. Maybe that is the reason for Funakoshi to rename all the Kata he used and maybe that is the reason for Mabuni and others to use Ateji for the Kata names. But when the not so highly educated people couldn't read Katagana properly they would have their fair share of problems reading exotic Kanji. Who knows.

Mabuni used Katagana in his 1938 book Kobo Kenpo Karate-Do Nyumon take a look here at page 74.

So whenever Shotokan is written with the simplified Kanji for wave it is still read Shotokan, it still means House of the Pinewave but it is written wrong. It is the same with Names in the western hemisphere. Iain and Ian are different ways for writing the same name. They mean the same, they are read the same way but the way to write them is differently.

Dale Parker wrote:

I'm starting to think Holger will say the opposite of anything I post.

Dale I can honestly tell you that this is not the case. I am not eyeballing every post of yours to answer it in a contradictory manner.

You don't have to be convinced, this is also what my Japanese Professors at the University of Northern Iowa taught in Japanese 1 in the early 1990's when I was learning Japanese.

The very first day we started learning Katakana, and they said it was not required by Japanese to learn Katakana until after the war, that is when it became widely used.

Mabuni was a highly educated person, so yes, I believe he would have used it.

The other thing is you are referencing documents and books that you have no proof the "Author" actually wrote the katakana, as I've stated before, the editors often did that. Its still common practice in Japan in publishing if a Kanji is not commonly known, the editors replace it with kana, sometimes they show both, but in old books they would just replace.

I know for a fact Mabuni wrote all the kata names in Kanji, not Katakana, I've seen the Mabuni Kata Scroll at the Hombu dojo, all the kata in Kanji, except for the 3 Itosu Rohai kata and Sanseiru, per his son Kenzo Mabuni those kata are not on there in any form because he forgot them, he did it by hand, and restarted everytime he made a mistake, so the final version is lacking those 4 kata as he essentially gave up.

You don't have to be convinced, this is also what my Japanese Professors at the University of Northern Iowa taught in Japanese 1 in the early 1990's when I was learning Japanese.

The very first day we started learning Katakana, and they said it was not required by Japanese to learn Katakana until after the war, that is when it became widely used.

Thanks for that. Interesting. Never heard that before.

Dale Parker wrote:

The other thing is you are referencing documents and books that you have no proof the "Author" actually wrote the katakana, as I've stated before, the editors often did that. Its still common practice in Japan in publishing if a Kanji is not commonly known, the editors replace it with kana, sometimes they show both, but in old books they would just replace.

That is certainly so. But I guess the author has his say with that.

Dale Parker wrote:

I know for a fact Mabuni wrote all the kata names in Kanji, not Katakana, I've seen the Mabuni Kata Scroll at the Hombu dojo, all the kata in Kanji, except for the 3 Itosu Rohai kata and Sanseiru, per his son Kenzo Mabuni those kata are not on there in any form because he forgot them, he did it by hand, and restarted everytime he made a mistake, so the final version is lacking those 4 kata as he essentially gave up.

Do you know if he always wrote the Kata names in Kanji and never in Katakana (published texts aside)? Can you put a date on the making of that scroll? I guess it was made after the war?

Again if that was the case maybe the use of Ateji or the renaming of the Kata are based on the lack of processing Katakana with the majority of people back then.

Soke Kenzo, said that when his father could he always used Kanji, there were a few kata with very rare Kanji that he would sometimes use Katakana, Kururunfa is one of them.

For the scroll, I cannot date it, I always assumed it was pre war, as the context of the conversation was he made the scroll for one of his early publications, and was rushed by his editor, this is why the final version is missing the 4 kata I mentioned above, as he was under a deadline pressure, and everytime he made a mistake, he had to start over from the beginning. Soke later explained that the scroll became the standard kata list for Shito-Ryu and that is the reason some Shito-Ryu schools do not include those 4 kata, however they are a part of the traditional Shito-Ryu syllabus, just not the original published syllabus.

Soke did say often the kata names were writen with Ateji when the actual kanji was not well known or completely unknown.

Soke did say often the kata names were writen with Ateji when the actual kanji was not well known or completely unknown.

There are only a few Kata the Kanji were known at least to my knowledge. Those are Kushanku and all Kata whose names consist of that whole numbers stuff. Seishan, Nipaipo, Suparimpei, Gojushiho, Niseishi etc.

I know for a fact Mabuni wrote all the kata names in Kanji, not Katakana,

Interesting. Are there any photographs of this scroll?

Leaving aside other areas of this discussion, I’d like to focus in on the scroll as I think that is the key issue.

Dale - I take it you accept that these Kanji are also modern attributions as opposed to anything historic? In other words, he was just doing the same as Funakoshi, Nagamine, etc?

If it is being suggested that these Kanji have any historical validity – and are not simply Mabuni’s own preferences – then that is certainly something that needs explored further.

If there is verifiably proof that these are “authentic” Kanji handed down from the past then this would revolutionise what we know of kata names. One look at that scroll and experts in the Japanese, Okinawan, and Chinese languages would be able to say with certainty what the names mean. Decades of ambiguity gone; just like that!

If the claim is being made that these are “authentic” kanji, on what basis is that claim being made?

In the absence of anything verifiable, I think Mabuni would simply have be doing the same as Funakoshi, Nagamine, etc by attributing “new” Kanji to the names handed down from history. And if that is the case, then they would still tell us nothing about the original meanings of the kata names. If, however, Mabuni’s Kanji is different from everyone else’s in that it has some verifiable history behind it, then that’s HUGE!

Until such evidence is put forward, I would maintain the position that Mabuni’s kanji are nothing special (i.e. not different from anyone else’s) and that they are not historically significant for the following reasons.

In Funakoshi’s Karate-Do Kyohan, he wrote the following:

“Historically, kata have names like “Pinan”, “Seishan”, Naihanchi”, “Wanshu”, “Chinto”, etc. because our oral tradition has told us so. However, the meanings of some of these names are unclear. Even for teaching purposes they are confusing and ambiguous. Besides karate has distinctively and completely become the karate of Japan, and therefore I do not wish to cling to the old and incomprehensible names of the Chinese style.”

I’ve copied original page below and, as you can see, the names are written in katakana. (I’ve colour shifted them to red to make them stand out). The book was published in 1935; four years before the start of the Second World War, and it was intended for a wide audience. So whatever the Japanese government's official position on the teaching of katakana, it was certainly used in this text for the kata names. We can also assume that there was an expectation the katakana would make sense to the readership.

Funakoshi is therefore telling us that the names were part of an “oral tradition” and not a written one. He also tells us the meaning of the names were “unclear” and that he wanted to use other names – the ones Shotokan adopted – as opposed to clinging to “old and incomprehensible names of the Chinese style.”

If Mabuni’s Kanji is historic, then he obviously would need to have been party to some information that Funakoshi (and almost all other karateka of the time) were not. There would be a “written tradition” that Funakoshi had not been party to. It would also mean that Mabuni had kept these Kanji “under wraps” and hence left Funakoshi and all others to struggle on with “confusing”, “ambiguous” and “incomprehensible” names when Mabuni could have clarified everything.

So we are left with:

Possibility 1: Mabuni – and Mabuni alone it seems – knew the original kanji for the names, wrote them a scroll, but kept them secret from the wider karate community.

Consequence: This scroll is one of the most important documents in karate’s history and has huge ramifications for what we know about kata.

Possibility 2: Mabuni – like everyone else at the time – did not know the “original” kanji that the kata names were supposed to be written down with because the kata names had only been passed on orally and therefore the meanings were lost and only the sounds of the names were known. He therefore attributed his own Kanji to them.

Consequence: While it is interesting to know how Mabuni may have written the kata names in Kanji, the scroll would tell us nothing of historical significance beyond that.

“After he learnt something new, Mabuni would never keep it to himself and would introduce it to his association members who would use it for their own studies. The old way was to keep such information secret, but Mabuni chose to be open and disclose information.”

I therefore feel it is most likely that whatever is on the scroll is simply Mabuni giving the “sounds” of the kata names that he was bequeathed approximations in Kanji; just as others have done. And in that case, while interesting, they still gives us no information about the historical meanings of the names.

I was writing my post as Dale posted the last one – so this is a quick additional question:

Dale Parker wrote:

Soke did say often the kata names were writen with Ateji when the actual kanji was not well known or completely unknown.

Do we know which is which? The Pinans and Kushanku / Kosokun tended to be written in Kanji by Funakoshi in his early works; while all others were written using katakana. There are the "numner ones" too. So I can see those being consistent. What about any of the others? And when you say “not well known or completely unknown” the next question has to be “known from where”? What is the historical source for those Kanji pre-Mabuni?

Of particular relevance to this thread, were the “Naihanchi” Kanji that you posted earlier known to Mabuni from another source, or there they ones he used because the kanji were unknown? If they were known ones, where did he know them from?

I'm sure there are. The only thing I personally have would be old VHS video of the dojo.

Iain Abernethy wrote:

Dale - I take it you accept that these Kanji are also modern attributions as opposed to anything historic? In other words, he was just doing the same as Funakoshi, Nagamine, etc?
If it is being suggested that these Kanji have any historical validity – and are not simply Mabuni’s own preferences – then that is certainly something that needs explored further.
If there is verifiably proof that these are “authentic” Kanji handed down from the past then this would revolutionise what we know of kata names. One look at that scroll and experts in the Japanese, Okinawan, and Chinese languages would be able to say with certainty what the names mean. Decades of ambiguity gone; just like that!

I think we are getting a bit too excited here.
Mabuni used Kanji, I think he most likely chose which Kanji to use, as Soke Kenzo Mabuni also said his father "named" techniques as many did not have names when he was taught.

Iain Abernethy wrote:

In the absence of anything verifiable, I think Mabuni would simply have be doing the same as Funakoshi, Nagamine, etc by attributing “new” Kanji to the names handed down from history. And if that is the case, then they would still tell us nothing about the original meanings of the kata names. If, however, Mabuni’s Kanji is different from everyone else’s in that it has some verifiable history behind it, then that’s HUGE!
Until such evidence is put forward, I would maintain the position that Mabuni’s kanji are nothing special (i.e. not different from anyone else’s) and that they are not historically significant for the following reasons.

I agree, I think he was doing what others did, and used Kanji to do it, but his Kanji are different from others though. I've often pondered why.
So I won't rule out that there might be some significance to them.

Iain Abernethy wrote:

Do we know which is which? The Pinans and Kushanku / Kosokun tended to be written in Kanji by Funakoshi in his early works; while all others were written using katakana. There are the "numner ones" too. So I can see those being consistent. What about any of the others? And when you say “not well known or completely unknown” the next question has to be “known from where”? What is the historical source for those Kanji pre-Mabuni?

I know that Seienchin was Ateji and possibly Kururunfa. The others I do not know.

Iain Abernethy wrote:

Of particular relevance to this thread, were the “Naihanchi” Kanji that you posted earlier known to Mabuni from another source, or there they ones he used because the kanji were unknown? If they were known ones, where did he know them from?

I only know that those are the Kanji Mabuni used for Naihanchi.
What I do have is an old typed Kanji list of the kata's, a handout from Soke Mabuni, it matched the Kakemono of the Kata, in hand writen Romanji are all the names translated with Soke's help.